


If it's good enough for the apocalypse

by Nezumi



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1529501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nezumi/pseuds/Nezumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Wizards/Pacific Rim crossover.</p><p>Jaeger pilot Nita isn't happy to hear that her younger sister has made it into the Academy.</p><p>Inspired by tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If it's good enough for the apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr:  
> http://entropiccu.tumblr.com/post/60311699903/young-wizards-pacific-rim

The first time in two years Nita had seen her sister’s face, and it was on a roster for newly accepted students to the Jaeger Academy.

“I thought you’d want to know,” Marshall Tom Swale said, and turned the monitor back around. He looked across his desk at Nita to gauge her reaction.

She put her head in her hands and shook with barely repressed fury. “I can’t believe this. How could she do this? How could they let her in? She’s, she’s too—“

“She’s sixteen, same as you were, so don’t tell me she’s too young. Not even the youngest we’ve had.”

Nita slumped back in her chair. “I warned her. Our dad warned her. She never listened to us before, I don’t know why I expected her too now,” She looked at Tom hopefully. He had been her teacher when she was at the Academy before his promotion, and her commanding officer for the better part of her time spent as a Ranger. “Can’t you do something?”

He gave her a wry look. “I think you know the answer to that already.”

“Yeah…yessir. Sorry.”

“Now you know how we feel. When you and others end up here.”

She groaned and stood up. “Thank you for telling me, Marshall. I appreciate it. I’m just upset with her for…this,” and she scrubbed her face with her hands wearily.

Tom nodded. “Her test scores were…something to take notice of. Phenomenal, even. The instructors are calling her the next McAllister.”

A look of horror passed over Nita’s face. “That’s the kind of thing what I was afraid of.” She snapped off a sharp salute and a more casual goodbye before exiting his office, no doubt to go find her partner.

With a sigh, Tom relaxed just a little. Teaching was one thing, but being an officer was another entirely. The only thing that never changed was wondering which mission would be the fatal one, and who he would be sending into the abyss.

\----

As the Marshall predicted, Nita went straight to Kit to vent. He was in the rec’ room chatting with Ronan Nolan, one of the pilots of the Jaeger dubbed Cúchulainn. Ronan was the first to notice her coming. He immediately stopped talking and rose to his feet, brushing off imaginary lint.

“I know that look,” he said. “Talk to you later, Kit. Try not to rough him up too much, Callahan.”

“Stuff it, paddy-o-furniture.” She spared a brief smile at his familiar biting humor. Once she had been endlessly frustrated with trying to navigate the fierce anger that he wrapped around himself like a cloak. There had even been a time when she wanted nothing more than to cleave through it to see inside his head, but they had never been able to drift properly in the simulations.

She only started to understand him the moment she stopped trying. They were friends, she and him and Kit. That’s how they survived the Academy. Ronan’s anger was his armor and lance, and it sometimes glanced off his friends, but Nita found the black humor underneath a comfort.

As it turned out, she and Kit had proved as drift-compatible as any pair could be.

Ronan’s partner was a Ranger everyone referred to as Peach, a striking older woman who matched both his fury and his wit measure for measure. Their shared Irish heritage was the basis for a natural camaraderie. They often seemed to regard other people as falling into one of two categories: Irish or not Irish. It could be funny and at other times maddening, especially when you could never tell when they were serious about it.

He gave her a single clap on the shoulder and a wave on his way out. Nita turned to Kit. “I have an unbelievable urge to punch something,” she announced.

“Uh-oh. Better get you out of here before it becomes self-prophecy. Room?”

“Room.”

“Do we need alcohol?”

“Better not. Marshall Swale wasn’t happy about the damage last time.”

“He wasn’t happy about the damage to _Lightbringer_. I don’t think he cared much about us or the hangar.”

“In any case, let’s avoid it.”

“All right. I think we still have some lemon soda left in the fridge. And some potato chips.”

“Kit. This is why we’re partners.”

\----

“That little...idiot. Monster. _Genius_. MORON.”

They were sitting on Nita’s bed in their room, next to a growing collection of soda cans and chip bags. Alcohol was technically against regulations; although like any good army or military, people tended to skirt the rules. Jaeger pilots had to play it safer than the rest of them; there was no telling when you’d go on call.

“Hate to say it, Neets, but it’s not like we couldn’t have seen this coming.”

“That is not reassuring at all. At least you have the comfort of knowing it’s not _your_ sister.”

Kit looked horrified, as he always did when she brought up the subject. “Please don’t remind me. I’m not worried about Helena at least, but every day I thank the powers that be Carmela decided on the language thing.” His youngest sister had apparently considered the Academy, though Nita got the feeling it was just a way to give Kit grief. Carmela had a particular gift for languages, so she’d ended up as an interpreter…for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, a final proverbial poke at her brother. Now she just kept up a running threat to drop by for a visit.

“I can’t believe her,” Nita groaned. “Why does she have to be so…damn...smart?”

“I wouldn’t say smart. More like…high-functioning sociop—ow!”

“Shut it. Dairine could literally do anything, _anything_ she wanted. Of course she chooses the one thing we all told her specifically not to. How did she even get this past my dad without--oh god, I haven’t called him yet…”

Kit rubbed his shoulder where she’d punched him. “That’s what I’d like to know. Both his daughters piloting Jaegers? Knowing your dad, he’d shut her down faster than she could blink.”

Nita and Kit had grown up in the same neighborhood. Both their families had stayed in New York even after the first Kaiju attacks, when most people fled major cities, as though that was somehow safer. It was somehow a given that they would enter the Jaeger Academy together when they were old enough, a promise never spoken aloud, until Nita’s mother died.

Somehow cancer was worse than a Kaiju could ever be. Cancer was untouchable. But Kaiju could be killed.

She sometimes wondered if it was selfish of her to leave her dad and Dairine behind like that. The way her dad’s face had crumpled, the heartsick look of him, when she got accepted into the Academy. That hadn’t left her. And although she hated to admit it, she could understand Dairine’s behavior.

Dairine, who was always too smart for her own good. Dairine, who was never satisfied with being a nobody in a world on the brink of destruction. Of course she wouldn’t sit at home and quietly finish high school and graduate like everyone else. Peace and quiet was antithetical to Dairine’s nature.

Nita was going to give that girl so much hell when she saw her.


End file.
